Thoughts
by efteraer
Summary: Sark and Sydney reflect after her betrayal.... AU - COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

A/N: So, err yeah, long time since I've written something and this hasn't nearly come out as wanted, blame it on my tiredness, but I just decided now that I am done with this fic, it has been occupying my mind for weeks, tormenting me really and although I'm still far from being satisfied I'll post it, because I feel that it will never come out right. If you spot contradictions, blame it not on me, but on the fact that feelings are very contradictory most of the time, which sort of explains the messed-upness of this, well mess, really . What else, ah yes, VERY alternative universe, as always, sticking to the storyline is too damn difficult for a poor writer like me :) If you haven't read my other attempts at fanfic, try them anyway, I really think those are better than this. On with the story then.  
  
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He had never thought she would give in to his advances, but in the end she did just that. She gave in. Her spiteful, disgusted behaviour towards him changed into something else, tenderness, affection.love. He could not believe his luck then. And today .?  
  
Today he wonders how he could have been as stupid as to believe in a thing like luck.  
  
Fact is, it should have made him suspicious right from the start.  
  
He blames it on her very convincing act, but deep down he does not believe this. He cannot lie to himself, it is not his style, but for once he wish he could. Because deep down he knows the reason why she was able to fool him and use him. He had let go of control, of better be safe than sorry. And now . well, now he is paying for it.  
  
He deserves to sit in this cell again, he really does. Quite ironic that he agrees with the CIA on this fact, though they both have different reasons, that lead to the same conclusion.  
  
They think criminal, he thinks fool. They think dangerous terrorist, he thinks blinded-by-love idiot. They think cold blooded murderer, he thinks about all the times he has made love to her.  
  
He cannot get the image of her out of his head, cannot forget about how when she smiled, she seemed to smile only for him, how well they fit together, the silky feeling her hair left on his chest, when she would fall asleep curled up tightly next to him, cannot forget how she made him love her.  
  
And he does not want to. He can pretend to compartmentalize just as well as before he met her. In the end though, he does not want to let go of these memories, he welcomes the pain; maybe to torture himself, to teach himself a lesson, maybe to have a proof that he is very human after all.  
  
In all these months he has been in this cell again, she has not come to see him once. Whether that is a good sign or a bad one, or no sign at all, he does not know.  
  
There is so much he does not know lately.  
  
Did she really mean nothing of what she would tell him when they were lying in bed, spent and exhausted?  
  
The way she looked at him, was it all a lie? The way she touched him, was it all an act?  
  
Was it really just one big deception, or was their some part of her that had been honest?  
  
He would rather believe the latter one, but he is fooling himself again. Well. probably, how can he be sure, if he has not seen her since she brought him in.  
  
Sometimes he thinks that he has proof that their love was mutual. After all she did stay with him for half a year, a long time only to have him arrested. She could have sedated him after their first night together, instead of staying at his side for so long, playing his girlfriend.  
  
Of course as always, there was another viewpoint. 6 months must have been pretty fruitful in terms of gathering compromising information on his business partners and himself.  
  
Or that had just been a pretence for the CIA, because she actually enjoyed being with him.  
  
His mind is running in circles and whenever he tortures himself like this, he realises that it is finally getting to him. The imprisonment, being left completely alone. Instead of plotting on how to get out of this glass cage, he ponders his past, analyzing every least bit if it, to see whether she ever felt something for him. Pathetic.  
  
But what else should he do, when all the visits he gets are a guard bringing him his food. He is not questioned anymore having revealed all he knows in his first questionings. Not caring about anything at that time he had told them everything. He thinks he might still do the same thing now. Still not healed, not over the betrayal; his wounds, although not visible to the bare eye, still wide open.  
  
That's when he hears it, the clicking heels, the confident stride only Sydney Bristow could pull off. He stays where he is, standing in a corner of his cell, forehead leaned against the wall. He likes to stand there, no camera capturing his face, the only way to have some privacy, the only place where his face can mirror how defeated he feels inside without anyone recording it for the after world. His posture probably betrays him though, but he couldn't care less. It is not as if they couldn't guess by themselves. He is falling apart.  
  
"Julian?"  
  
He ignores her, seriously, she deserves nothing else.  
  
"Julian..."  
  
Nothing. He nearly smirks, imagining that slightly upset frown slowly creeping up into her face, but. he really isn't a man who smirks anymore.  
  
By now she should be openly annoyed, a woman like her not used to being ignored. He used to not ignore her, he used to give her all and every possible attention, but it had not been enough apparently. Oh yes, it is hard to please Ms Bristow, indeed.  
  
"Julian, please."  
  
Begging now, is she? He can remember her begging for a lot of things, under very different circumstances, but he can't remember her begging for the cruel truth, deliberate hurting that she most certainly expects.  
  
He still can't answer her, after all he has some pride, and sounding defeated and pathetic, well, he certainly does not feel like giving her that triumph.  
  
Steadying himself, breathing in deeply, letting go of the secure support of the wall he looks up at her. Tries hard to look disdainful and superior, fails miserably.  
  
"What."  
  
The question nearly dies on his lips and he is not really interested anyway, after all, what could she possibly tell him. Nothing that will come out of her mouth will be what he longs to hear. He does not want a full confession; it would be enough if she told him that not all was a lie. He wouldn't mind that, it would make him feel less stupid if he knew that he had not been entirely fooled by her. But does he really want that? Another thing to add to the growing list of things he does not know.  
  
"I."  
  
She is at loss of words, and he sees the uncertainty flash through her eyes. It's gone so fast that a casual observer wouldn't even have realised it. He, however, is anything but a casual observer.  
  
Sark, he thinks, would have taken that moment of weakness and would have brought her to her knees with it. But he has been all but stripped of that persona, he is only Julian now. Julian is not interested in making her suffer and she knows it. It's why she called him by his first name, he's pretty sure of that now. The realisation doesn't make him angry, nothing does lately. He just can't make himself care anymore.  
  
"Just go away." He hears himself say quietly. He says it before he realises that it is what he really wants and needs.  
  
No tearful confession, no explanation, no nothing will satisfy him. He is quite surprised at the sudden realisation and at himself.  
  
He observes her, her expression goes from startled, to surprised as well and finally to guilty and deeply sad. He can't give her forgiveness, she knows it just as well as he does. It is all he has left, the last shred of control he can have, imprisoned and isolated. Forgiveness would give her peace and him closure. Whether it is sheer cruelty or a survival instinct, he adds it to his list of things unknown to him(it is probably both though), but he is not about to give up hope or that tiny bit of satisfaction it gives to Sark to see them both like this, stumbling to not fall over the edge.  
  
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If you haven't read my A/N, do it now, it's my only chance of maybe getting some positive feedback, and who doesn't want his talent, or pseudo-talent caressed ;) 


	2. Chapter 2

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She is good at what she is doing, at her job. She is an agent who can bring to life whatever alias she momentarily impersonates. She is a brilliant actress able to pretend to be anybody. Posing as Sark's girlfriend had not been on her top ten list of impersonations.  
  
She smiles sadly, when she realises in what tense she is thinking. It had not been on her top ten list, but nowadays, well, it had changed and that particular alias had made it to the unattainable top of the list, the moment she realised she could not back off anymore. The moment she realised that she could not get around arresting him, the moment where her heart broke.  
  
Not that that was something new. Her heart had been shattered before, a few times already, through different things, but not like this. Every time before, she had been a bystander, unable to change or do something about it, seeing Danny dead in the bathtub, pulling the mask off of Noah's face, finding out that her father had programmed her to be a spy, meeting her mother "The Man", finding Will barely breathing in the bathtub, realising that Francie was dead, discovering the ring on Vaughn's finger.  
  
Every single time her heart shattered to pieces and never could she do anything about it, prevent the event from happening, saving them, saving herself.  
  
This time had been different though. She had been conscious that it would happen, had been conscious that by betraying Sark, she would ultimately betray herself, her heart. She thinks she probably has a huge masochistic trait somewhere to be able to pull off something like that.  
  
People try to hide it, but she knows better. She knows they are talking behind her back, saying that she has changed, that she seems distracted most of the time, that maybe she finally cannot cope anymore. They do not even consider that it might be because of him, she is after all too professional to let herself get attached to a wanted criminal even though this operation had forced her to get as close to somebody as humanly possible.  
  
She had tried to stretch the time she spent with him to a maximum, had tried to convince the CIA that there were still contacts she did not know of, information she could still get, but they had ordered her to arrest him after 6 months, when that masochistic trait came into play and actually made her do just that.  
  
When he had started opening up to her, telling her about himself, his reasons and motives, about Julian, she had been lost. She can still pinpoint it to the second when she realised that she had completely fallen for him.  
  
When he told her he loved her, two hours and twenty three minutes before she was supposed to arrest him.  
  
She can still remember the moment in every detail. She had just woken up and when she had opened her eyes, she saw him lying across from her. His eyes were shining and when his hand crept over the white sheets to brush a strand of hair away from her eyes, he smiled and told her he loved her. There had been no hesitation in her voice when she answered him, for she truly felt it and when she urged him to make love to her only seconds afterwards, to cover her desperateness and panic, she felt so horrible but at the same so wonderful.  
  
She is punishing herself, tormenting her mind with the memories and images of their past happiness. She can't let go, because she feels too guilty. And every single time she thinks of him, of Julian, she sees how alone she truly is.  
  
She has been feeling alone every waking second, ever since he has been back behind the figurative bars.  
  
She has not yet been able to go there, to meet him, to look him into the eyes and tell him it was not a lie, because she thinks it might make things easier, or maybe it might just make them worse. She does not know.  
  
She knows he is falling apart, realised it earlier then everybody else. That he had revealed all he said he knew right away, had slightly worried her, that he had grown monosyllabic during interrogations had make her sick with worry. That the ever present spark in his eyes, the pride in his posture has vanished, makes her want to throw up.  
  
Whenever she looks at the images recorded from his cell, she deliberately lets her mistake get thrown into her face. She knows she deserves it. She can remind herself of all the atrocities he has committed and she still can't see (or won't, after all she is trying to be honest with herself) a justification that would satisfy her, make her guilt lessen. She is responsible for his falling apart, for his final break down, that everybody is awaiting, the final thing that will push him over the edge and will reduce him to someone they can handle and do not need to fear.  
  
Going to see him might prove to be that exact thing that will break him, which is why she has not been able to make herself go yet. She is masochistic alright, she does not want to add sadistic to her characteristics, or she is simply being a coward. Going for the simple thing proves right most of the time and she has been overanalyzing lately anyway.  
  
Her eyes yet again drift to the live feed. She gets up and walks towards the area that she has been so carefully avoiding over the last months. She wonders where that sudden courage comes from, what she will say, how he will react, how she is going to survive in there, when all she really wants is him. She thinks that she might break down if he won't acknowledge her at all. She can stand yelling and accusing but silence will kill her.  
  
She can feel everybody's eyes on her back, she does not need to turn her head to know that her dad, Vaughn, Weiss and Lauren all stopped whatever they were doing to look at her, striding self-confidently towards the cell block.  
  
She also knows they are wondering why she goes to see him now, after refusing so often, refusing to be used as a way to break him completely.  
  
She wonders whether he still recognizes her by her walk.  
  
"Julian?"  
  
He does not answer and she can feel the lump in her throat thicken, threatening to choke her. She knows she deserves nothing else and still, all she wants is to die when he doesn't acknowledge her.  
  
"Julian."  
  
Why she is calling him Julian, she is not sure. Calling him Sark would make things so much easier for her, but she guesses that as always she wants to punish herself and besides, when had she ever done anything the easy way.  
  
She is desperate for a sign of him, she knows for sure that she would handle it better if he told her that he hates and despises her. During his arrestment he had remained silent and now, if he does the same, she might be the one to break, not him.  
  
"Julian, please."  
  
She is begging, she realizes, and she couldn't care less, all she wants is acknowledgment, she knows she cannot ask for forgiveness, although she craves it, craves him.  
  
And then he looks up at her and she can see the front he is trying to put, she remembers, she used to call it the "Sark-thing". The memory flash is gone in a second and the hint of uncertainty that came with it, is gone just as fast.  
  
She can see in his eyes that he saw it and nearly wishes that he launches a verbal attack on her, that would leave her in a crying heap. He knows he has the power, there is no doubt about that, but he doesn't do it.  
  
"Just go away", she hears him say. She nearly laughs out if relief of having escaped his wrath. But this is so wrong, he should be demanding for an explanation, threatening her, yelling, anything, something, but not this. Ironic she thinks, as inside of her everything crumbles to pieces, that it only took him three quietly muttered words to shatter her. It had also taken him three words to make her feel as happy as she hadn't been in years.  
  
She turns around and only feels sadness, she had come for forgiveness, a delusional thought, and now leaves with the certainty that he will never give her that, unable to let her go, not wanting to disappear from her thoughts, her memories, her dreams.  
  
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End file.
